JI inconveniencing the very citizens it claims to be protesting for, says PPP's Saeed Ghani

PPP leader and Sindh Labour Minister Saeed Ghani on Monday questioned the Jamaat-i-Islami’s (JI) rationale for staging sit-ins against the petroleum levy, saying that the party was inadvertently inconveniencing the citizens it claimed to be protesting for.

The JI has been staging sit-ins across the country since Sunday against the levy imposed on petroleum products and other taxes.

Speaking to the media in Karachi, Ghani said the JI’s intentions to protest over public concerns and to ease their issues were a “good thing” to which he had no objection.

“But, they choose those 18 points in Karachi where Karachi will get fully blocked, and then demonstrate there. What difference does it make to Shehbaz Sharif, to whom you are making demands?”

Ghani said that by closing down roads, demonstrating and inconveniencing the people, the JI was forcing the same people suffering due to high petrol prices to use “four more litres of petrol a day”.

He questioned their rationale, saying, “The people you are talking about making petrol cheaper for — if you ask them, they are cussing you out.”

The minister criticised that the party justified their methods by saying that it would make no difference to the government until the people faced difficulty.

“Meaning, if you want to scold Shehbaz Sharif, then make the lives of Karachi’s citizens … only then will he listen. What rationale is this?” he said.

Ghani added that he would request JI emir Hafiz Naeemur Rehman — whom he called an “educated man” — to lead demonstrations in places that would give the people they were demonstrating for “sympathy” for the party and its mission.